


The Jungle

by Rocky_T



Series: Bootstrap [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Multi, Origin Story, Pre-Voyager
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:01:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23328925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rocky_T/pseuds/Rocky_T
Summary: Exploring the early years in the life and times of Justin Tighe.Time frame: Between 2336 and 2342
Relationships: Justin Tighe/Other(s)
Series: Bootstrap [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1677664
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Set in the Star Trek (pre-VOY) universe, which is the property of Paramount/Viacom. The character of Justin is a creation of Jeri Taylor in her novel "Mosaic." Everything else is mine.
> 
> First in the “Bootstrap” series tracing the backstory of Justin Tighe, Janeway's first fiancé. The history of that relationship is covered in my "Lieutenant" series; look for these two series to eventually intersect. There is also a planned convergence with the “Second Chances” series.
> 
> Many, many thanks to Seema for her usual excellent beta.

**Year: 2336**

The boy couldn't have been more than nine or 10 years old He was scarcely more than skin and bones, with matted black hair falling into feral green eyes. Captain John Darius didn't know whether to feel angry, amused or protective toward the child he'd caught trying to lift his moneybag. 

"Hey there, what do you think you're doing?" Darius said, keeping a firm grip on the squirming boy's arm.

"Lemme go! I ain't done nothing!" the boy shrieked. He kicked wildly, his bare, grimy feet glancing harmlessly off Darius' thick Starfleet-issue boots.

" _Nothing_ , you little shit?" said McKenzie as he hurried to assist his captain. "You're not only a thief, you're a lying little—" 

"I'll handle this, Lieutenant, thank you," Darius said to his security officer. He turned to his struggling captive. "I'll grant you haven't done anything _yet_ , but that's only because I stopped you."

The boy flinched, as if expecting a blow. "I didn't mean it, honest! I just bumped into you, Mister."

McKenzie's face darkened. "Of all the—"

"Lieutenant," Darius said sharply. He bent down to the boy's level. "No one is going to hurt you, I promise. What's your name, son?"

"J-Justin," came the reply, accompanied by a sniff. Darius suddenly wondered if he had overestimated the boy's age. Regardless, it was rapidly becoming too dark outside for any child to be wandering the streets, particularly in what was known to be one of the worst neighborhoods in the capital city. Darius’ ship, the _Aurora_ , was scheduled to be in orbit for 48 hours—just long enough to deliver some much-needed medical supplies and pick up a visiting Federation dignitary--but Darius had already seen more of Klatus Prime than he cared to.

"Well, Justin, we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot," Darius said kindly, but without relinquishing his hold. "Why were you trying to rob me? And don't bother trying to deny it," he added firmly.

The boy stared at him for a long moment. "I'm hungry," he said at last, his tone more surly than apologetic.

Darius met those appraising green eyes, trying to gauge the sincerity behind that statement. He straightened up. "Come with me."

"Where to?" Justin said suspiciously. 

"You said you were hungry," Darius said. "We passed a restaurant on the last block, didn't we, McKenzie?"

"If you can call it that," McKenzie muttered. "Uh, yes, sir, we did."

"Then let's go," Darius said.

“You’re gonna buy me something to eat,” Justin said, not moving. “Just like that?”

Darius nodded.

“Why?”

“I have a son about your age,” Darius said. “I’d like to think if he was in need, someone would help him.” 

Justin studied him a few seconds longer, as if trying to determine an ulterior motive. Without breaking eye contact, Darius let go of Justin’s arm, gambling the promise of a free meal meant the boy wouldn't dart away down the alley the minute he was released. 

His instincts proved to be correct. Justin made no further objections and scampered along eagerly, trying to match his steps to the much longer strides of the officers, until they reached a battered eating establishment. Ignoring the knots of ragged men standing aimlessly on the sidewalk, Darius went inside.

He motioned the boy into a booth and slid in next to him, grimacing at the torn tri-vinyl seat and the layer of grime on the scarred laminate surface of the tabletop. "What would you like to eat?" Darius said, pointing at the menu display.

Justin didn't answer right away; Darius suddenly wondered if the boy knew how to read. "Can I have anything I want?"

"Within reason," Darius said, then reconsidered. What difference did the credits make? "Yes, go ahead." He watched in amusement as Justin gleefully punched in the codes for two large sandwiches, fried _parvaz_ nuggets, plus an order of _basel_ rings and a large _tookaberry_ milkshake.

"Ain't you gonna have anything?" Justin asked, while they waited for the food to arrive.

"No, I'm fine."

"What about _him_?" Justin jerked his thumb in the direction of McKenzie, who had declined to join them and instead stood watching the clientele with a suspicious expression on his face, as if daring anyone to start up with him. "He your bodyguard?"

"Not quite," Darius said, his lips twitching. "He's one of my officers."

"You a soldier? That don't look like a Greens uniform."

The Greens were the planetary militia; their unsavory reputation was well known. Darius kept his expression neutral. "No, I'm a member of Starfleet."

Justin's eyes grew wide, but he quickly covered any awe he may have felt and pointed at McKenzie once more. "They let gorillas like that become 'Fleeters?" 

Darius was saved from replying by the arrival of their food, brought by a middle-aged woman whose elaborately coifed bright orange hair was the only part of her that showed any life.

"Who gets what?" she asked in a disinterested tone, as she set the dishes down.

"It's all for him," Darius said with a small smile in Justin's direction.

The woman's expression changed, becoming even less friendly than before if that were possible. Her lips pursed in disapproval as she handed Darius the bill and waited, hand outstretched, until he gave her the requisite number of credits. "I should have guessed, but you didn't look the type. Then again, we don't get many 'Fleeters in here."

Darius opened his mouth to ask her what she was talking about, but was distracted by the sight of Justin rapidly shoveling food into his mouth. "Whoa, take it easy, son. No need to eat so fast. You don’t want it all coming up again, do you?"

Justin took a noisy slurp of his milkshake, and then continued attacking the other dishes in front of him. He didn't appreciably slow down until most of the food was gone.

Darius smiled wryly. The boy hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said he was hungry. He wondered when Justin had last had a square meal. "All set? You want anything else?" 

"Nah, I'm stuffed." Justin's reply was punctuated with a loud burp.

"Then let's go," Darius said. He nodded at McKenzie, who immediately fell into step behind him.

Full night had fallen while they'd been indoors. The temperature had also plummeted about ten degrees. Despite the chill, the street was more crowded than it had been earlier; most of the new arrivals were young, scantily-dressed women, who struck provocative poses and smiled seductively at the passers-by. Lurid signs on the shabby buildings pierced the nighttime sky, advertising mood-altering beverages, ground and air vehicles, and other products whose uses Darius couldn't even guess at. A man stumbled past them, the reek rising off him equal parts sweat, urine and alcohol.

Darius caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and only his long-honed instincts enabled him to grab Justin's arm before the boy scurried off.

"Where are you going?" Darius asked softly.

There was a scared look in Justin's eyes that hadn't been there earlier. "I gotta go."

"I want to ask you something first, all right?"

"Really, I gotta go!" Justin's voice rose in panic. 

Darius frowned, trying to understand the reason for Justin's sudden distress. He'd just bought him a meal, after all. Surely the boy realized by now his intentions were benign, that Darius wasn't going to hurt him—

With a screeching of brakes, a late-model flitter stopped at the curb. A window rolled down, and one of the streetwalkers in the nearby cluster came strolling over, hips swaying exaggeratedly with every step. Darius realized with surprise that the garishly made-up individual was a boy, not much older than Justin by the looks of him. A sick feeling came over the starship captain as he watched the youth get into the flitter and drive away.

Darius cleared his throat. "Do you have a home, Justin? Parents, a family to look out for you?" 

"Yeah," the boy mumbled, eyes still darting desperately from side to side as if seeking an avenue of escape. "I got folks. What about 'em?"

Darius squatted down, heedless of the garbage littering the pavement, and gripped Justin's shoulders. "Then I want you to go home, right now. Don't hang out on the streets, it's not safe." He let go.

Justin's eyes narrowed in suspicion as he backed away a few steps. "What's it to you, anyway? Why do you care what I do?"

"Just think of me as someone concerned about your welfare."

"Why?" Justin repeated. "Why'd you buy me dinner? You think you're gonna get something in return?"

"I don't want anything from you, Justin," Darius said, biting back a sigh as he got to his feet. "I'm just trying to be your friend."

It was the wrong thing to say. "I don't need no friends like you!" Justin yelled over his shoulder as he took off. Within seconds, Darius lost sight of him in the crowd. 

"Well, that went well," Darius said under his breath. He looked up to see McKenzie staring at him. "Yes, Lieutenant, do you have something you'd like to say?"

"Captain, there's no sense in trying to help a kid like that. It's a waste of time."

"I'm inclined to agree with you, based on Justin's reaction," Darius said with a grimace. "But he's just a child. He shouldn't be living like this; none of these people should."

"Look, Captain, you mean well, but good intentions don't go very far, not here." McKenzie shook his head. "I was stationed on a hell-hole like this a few years back. I know what it's like." 

"Another mining colony slowly fading as the dilithium runs out, with the population mired in poverty, violence and despair," Darius said grimly, beginning to walk down the street once more until they reached a relatively empty intersection. 

"Yes, sir, that's about it. Most of these folks would just as soon cut your throat as look at you. And as for helping them, well…" McKenzie let his words trail away.

Starfleet had maintained a presence in the Klatus system for over fifty years, ever since the early days of the colony. There had been plenty of technological and financial support at the beginning, but now…aside from the occasional humanitarian mission, the planet’s residents didn’t seem to be getting much benefit from the continued association.

Darius smoothed his hand over his beard wearily, and then slapped his comm badge. "Darius to _Aurora_."

" _Aurora_ here, sir."

"Have Dr. Yaniv and the others returned to the ship yet?"

"Yes, sir. They beamed back half an hour ago."

"Very good. Lieutenant McKenzie and I are ready to beam up as well. Tell helm to leave orbit as soon as we're aboard. Darius out."

***

In the shadows of a building across the street, Justin's mouth dropped open in astonishment as the two 'Fleeters were enveloped in a blue glow and disappeared. He'd heard about transporters before, of course, but had never actually seen one in action, or known anyone who had. But everyone said the 'Fleeters had lots of fancy gadgets. He wished he'd managed to steal something, maybe a weapon, from the tall guy, the one who answered to 'Captain.' It would have been worth a lot on the street--that is, if he decided to sell it. On the other hand, a weapon would show Rafe and the rest of his gang that he was not too little to be of value. If only he'd been quicker-- But he hadn't made out too badly after all, Justin thought, patting his belly, comfortably full for a change. And without having to offer any “personal services” in return, like he’d overheard some of the girls talking about.

Footsteps sounded in the alley, followed by harsh laughter, reminding him he couldn't afford to linger safely in the vicinity much longer. Glancing around warily, he figured he may as well as go home, even though he was just as likely to get roughed up there as on the street. But it was still home, and he had nowhere else to go.


	2. Chapter 2

Serena Lemel, née Tighe, had once been considered a beautiful woman, with delicate features and soft strawberry blonde hair. But people--especially women--aged rapidly on Klatus Prime. Barely 28, she could easily have passed for twice that and her looks had faded over the years until only a faint echo of her beauty remained. She rocked back and forth in the battered old chair by the rusty heating unit, careful not to make any noise, and gazed unseeingly out the only external window, her arms clasped tightly over her swollen abdomen.

She rose suddenly to her feet at the sound of footsteps and voices in the hall outside the apartment, then sank back down as they passed by without stopping. She glanced at the chronometer for the hundredth time in the past hour and bit her lip in worry. 

Where could that boy be? Not surprisingly, he'd played truant again from school that day, yet hadn't come home later, even after dark. They lived in one of the rougher neighborhoods, because of the cheap rent. During the day it wasn’t _too_ dangerous, but at night--With each passing minute, she grew more and more concerned that something had happened to him.

Her emotions always seemed to be so close to the surface these days. Despite her efforts, a tear made its stinging way down the puffy, bruised flesh of her cheek. With a furtive look at the closed bedroom door, she pressed her fist against her mouth to prevent a sob from escaping. Clem was home now, asleep – officially, he was still recovering from the injuries he’d sustained in the mining accident last month, though he’d been out all day with no explanation; she suspected he’d spent those hours in one of the many bars that lined the streets. Either way, he wouldn’t take kindly to any disturbance.

Just then, she heard the sound of a key in the lock, then the scraping of the front door. To her relief, Justin came in, automatically reaching behind him to keep the door from banging as it closed. He was unkempt, covered with a layer of grime, but otherwise looked none the worse for wear.

“Where have you been?” she asked in a low voice not much louder than a whisper. 

“Out,” he said vaguely. 

“Out where?” she asked. “Justin, you know the streets aren’t safe after dark.”

“Oh, Mama,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You always say that.”

“Because it’s true, and you know it. Where have you been all day?” She waited for him to answer, and then as his silence continued, she pressed, “I know you weren’t in school today.”

“Mama, I’m keepin’ out of trouble,” he protested. “School’s stupid – there ain’t no reason why I need to go. ‘Specially when there’s more important stuff I could be doing.”

Serena took a deep breath. She and Justin had had this argument many times before, with her insisting he needed an education if he was to make something of himself, and he insisting just as strongly that there was nothing for him to learn in the provincial school. The streets were more interesting, and the gang leaders, some of them only a few years older than Justin himself, were more alluring role models, always with a pocket of credits to flash. The lateness of the hour and her exhaustion caught up with her, and she bit back what she had been going to say. “Are you hungry? I saved you some soup.”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Are you sure?” She reached out and smoothed his coarse black hair off his forehead with a sigh. Aside from the fact his hair looked like it hadn’t been combed for days, it was getting too long; she resolved to trim it in the morning, when the light was better.

“Already ate.”

Serena’s lips tightened. “Justin, we’ve spoken about this before. I don’t care what Rafe says, it’s against the law to steal--”

He jerked away from her touch. “Why do you always think I’m getting into trouble?” His voice rose in pitch. “I ain’t done _nothing_ \--” he broke off at the sound of the bedroom door opening. 

“What’s all this noise about?” Clem Lemel yelled as he emerged, accompanied by the heavy smell of cheap alcohol. “Can’t a man get some sleep around here?” 

Justin instinctively tried to shy away, but Clem’s arm shot out and caught him by the collar. Clem fixed bloodshot eyes upon him. “It’s all your fault, you little rat! Why are you making such a God-damned ruckus?”

Justin twisted desperately, trying to get away. “No, Da, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“`I didn’t mean to! I forgot!’” Clem shouted. “That’s all I ever hear out of you, boy, excuses!” Clem was only of medium height and build, but in his rage he loomed large over the terrified boy. He lashed out, his fist catching the corner of Justin’s jaw. The boy went limp for an instant, as he collided with the floor, and then he tried to scramble away. “Always up to no good, you’re more trouble than you’re worth!” Clem punctuated each word with a blow.

“Da, please! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please stop!” Justin curled up into fetal position, trying to protect his head as Clem continued viciously hitting and kicking him. There was a sharp crack, and then Justin screamed.

“Clem, stop! You’re hurting him!” Serena pleaded with her husband. “He’s only a little boy!”

She reached up, trying to catch his arm, but Clem shrugged her off, perhaps a little harder than he intended.

Serena stumbled forward, breaking her fall with her arm which glanced off the heater, instantly giving her a nasty burn. She gasped in pain. 

Clem pulled back in shock. “Serena? Serena, are you all right?” He turned on Justin in renewed fury. “Look what you just made me do!" 

Serena rocked back and forth, continuing to moan in pain, oblivious to everything else. 

Distracted, Clem knelt down next to her. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Serena, you know that, don’t you?”

Justin, forgotten for the moment, got up, his left arm dangling from the elbow at an unnatural angle. "Mama, Mama, are you all right?" 

Serena lifted her head, and managed to gasp, “The baby's coming.”

Clem stiffened in surprise. “Are you sure?” At Serena’s nod, he swallowed, then turned to Justin. “Go to the Mayfields and tell Letitia the baby’s coming!” Justin just gaped at him. “What are you waiting for, boy? Get moving!”

Cradling his injured arm, Justin hurried to obey.

Clem didn’t spare him a second glance, concern etched in his features as he bent over his wife.

***  
Justin leaned over the cradle in the main room, peeking at the baby inside. She was asleep, though from the way she was moving around, her lips opening and closing, she would probably be waking up soon. Justin straightened up cautiously to avoid bumping his arm accidentally. Even though it had been a few weeks since it had been broken, he was still wearing a homemade sling for support. Most of the bruises from that beating had already faded. 

He stared down at his baby sister, still amazed that anyone could be that tiny and helpless. A fierce urge to protect her rose up inside him, though he didn’t know how he would be able to do that, when he couldn’t even protect himself. Maybe if he got in with Rafe’s gang…but no, they hadn’t wanted him hanging around since he’d gotten this injury, saying he was too slow, a _liability_. He couldn’t even act as a lookout for them until his arm was healed, though Rafe _did_ seem to feel sorry for him. 

So Justin, for lack of anything better to do, was preparing to go off to school. He sighed at the unfairness of it all, and as if in agreement, the baby began to cry.

Serena was there almost immediately, bending over to lift the baby, the scar from a mostly-healed burn visible on her forearm. She looked even more tired than usual. 

“Hush, Kallie, Mama’s here,” she murmured, as she wrapped the faded coverlet more securely around the baby prior to picking her up. She sat down in the battered rocking chair and settled the baby at her breast. “Justin, it’s after 8 o’clock. Aren’t you going to school today?”

“Yes, Mama,” he said. 

“Did you finish your breakfast?”

He drank the last few drops of the thin vegetable broth that made up his typical morning meal, and placed his empty mug in the sink next to the rest of the dishes. He came over and gently stroked the baby’s fluffy head of blond curls. The baby let go of the nipple for a moment and gave him a big gummy grin. Justin smiled back, enthralled.

“Looks like she’s starting to recognize her big brother,” Serena said with a smile of her own.

“You think so?” he asked.

“Babies start to recognize the people who are around them a lot, who help take care of them.”

“I wish I could do more to take care of her,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Mama, why is Da so mean?”

Serena sighed. “Deep down, he’s a good man, Justin. It’s just the drink that makes him act that way. He doesn’t mean to hurt us. You know he’s sorry for the way he acted.”

Hearing his mother apologizing for Clem’s behavior caused anger to well up inside of Justin. The violence on the night Kallie had been born remained fresh and vivid in his mind. He remembered, too, how contrite Clem had been afterward, making a big show of caring for his wife during her labor, even asking the midwife to wrap up Justin’s arm before she left. And since that night, Clem had even announced he’d be cutting back on his drinking. But Justin didn’t trust Clem, whose normal interactions with him increasingly seemed to involve an impatient cuff to the head or a careless shove, and tried to avoid him as much as possible.

Justin shuffled to his feet, as his thoughts shifted to school and the new teacher who had started recently. Unlike her predecessors, who never lasted more than a year or two, this one was young and pretty, with long red hair. The boys had been talking about her during recess, making crass comments. She seemed tough, though, and willing to stick it out. “I’ll see you later, Mama.”

“Come straight home, you hear?”

“Yes, Mama.” He resigned himself to the kiss she planted on his cheek, though inwardly he craved the signs of her affection, and left the apartment.


	3. Chapter 3

In the dilapidated old building that served as the schoolhouse, Zenobia Parker surveyed the crowded classroom, with some of the students crammed three to a desk. Every now and then she wondered what her professors at Alphacent University would think of how she was putting her fancy liberal arts degree to use, teaching at a rundown school on a rundown world. It wasn’t as though she’d lacked opportunities. At times, she wasn’t sure if it was idealism or insanity that had led her to take this job. Klatus Prime wasn’t exactly the showplace of the sector. 

She herself hailed from a colony in the Rigellian system, in some ways quite like this one, and was under no illusions what life here was like. To many in the Federation, “dilithium mines” were synonymous with riches. This was indeed true – for the people who owned the mines. For the ones who worked to extract the crystals from the deep shafts below the surface, it was a different story. She remembered how her parents had scrimped and saved to send her and her sisters off world to complete their education to make better lives for themselves. She’d met Richard when they were both students at the University, and she had never planned on looking back. But a few years later, after her marriage failed, she realized she wanted to do something worthwhile, make a difference. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a surreptitious movement and moved swiftly to the Ando boy’s side. “Keep your eyes on your own paper, Bobby,” she said sternly.

“What?” he said innocently. “I’m just stretching.”

“Then don’t stretch in the direction of another student’s paper,” Zenobia retorted, “or try to get a look at someone else’s answers.”

“Teacher, I ain’t cheatin’!” Bobby said indignantly.

Her hard look caused his spluttering protests to die away. “Besides, if you _did_ use the answer Jonah just showed you, you’d have gotten the question wrong.”

At Bobby’s glare, Jonah hunched lower in his seat.

Zenobia raised her voice. “Back to work, everyone! You have ten more minutes to finish up.” She moved around the room, ever alert to any more attempts at cheating. She stopped next to Justin’s desk. He sat there quietly, his paper turned over as she’d instructed before the test began.

“You’ve still got a little more time, Justin,” she said.

He shook his head. “I’m finished. I answered all of ‘em.”

Zenobia doubted it was true. Appalled at the low standards the students had previously been held to, she had designed this math test to be challenging, but not impossible for her students to complete. She’d previously noted that Justin seemed to follow the lessons easily, though he never raised his hand in class. Even so, he should have needed all the allotted time to solve every problem.

The bell rang just then. “All right, class, put down your pencils. Stay in your seats until I’ve collected your papers. And no talking until I have them all.”

The instant she picked up his paper, Justin bolted, obviously not eager to stick around. Zenobia watched him go and bit back a sigh. Despite loudly proclaiming the importance of education, the provincial government did not enforce the truancy laws and the teachers had no means to compel the children to attend; it was largely up to their parents to make them come to school. Justin had just started showing up on a semi-regular basis a few weeks earlier, and his attendance was still very spotty; Zenobia feared a failed test would discourage any continued interest on his part.

That night, she lay down her red pen and stared at his math test in surprise. He’d gotten every single problem right – and in a fraction of the time she’d expected him to take. The last problem had been a “bonus”, as she’d demonstrated an almost identical exercise for the class two days earlier. With a shock, she realized that the workflow on his paper exactly matched the steps she’d written on the board. How had he remembered them so perfectly? She’d watched him – and the rest of the students – with an eagle eye and there had been no opportunity for him to copy during the test. 

Justin’s face was expressionless when Zenobia returned the test papers the next day. She’d expected him to at least show some pleasure in his perfect score. Instead, after a quick glance at the paper, he shoved it into his desk. He was one of the quiet ones – never disruptive, usually knew the answer if called upon, but never volunteered. At any rate, she hoped this boded well for his continued presence at school. 

As the weeks passed, she started taking a greater interest in Justin. From his ragged clothes, it was evident that like the rest of her pupils, he lived in poverty. He seemed more comfortable with numbers than words, but he did well with both if he applied himself. He was obviously very bright, and his memory prowess continued to astound her. From what she’d seen, he could recall any printed material, diagram or text, and retained the content even days later. 

Zenobia tried to talk to him about improving his attendance record, hoping to motivate him to take a greater interest in his studies. Justin was still young enough that she thought she still had a fighting chance, refused to believe she’d lose him to the allure of the streets. But either she hadn’t hit upon the right way to reach him yet, or there was some other reason why he remained so guarded.

She was also concerned about his injuries. Since she’d started paying closer attention to him, she noticed Justin was often sporting a fresh cut or bruise; she remembered how he’d had a broken arm when he’d first begun showing up at school. She’d asked him how it happened, but he wouldn't tell. She worried who was hurting him. 

The bell rang, signifying that school was done for the day. “Justin, would you please stay for a few moments?” she asked, gently touching his shoulder. At the look of fear in his eyes, she quickly added, “You’re not in trouble.”

“Then why do I hafta stay?”

“I have something for you, something that I think you will like.” Zenobia held up a PADD. “It’s a book about flying and spacecraft.” 

His eyes lit up, and his near-automatic protests quickly died away. 

She handed the PADD to him and flicked it on, showing him the title; paper books were more common in the classroom as they were cheaper to produce but they _did_ have a few PADDs. 

“`Flitters, Hovercraft and Shuttles – Orbital Flight and Beyond,’” he read, smiling at the brightly colored illustrations. Zenobia smiled too, glad she’d found something that appealed to him.

As he grasped the PADD clumsily, she noticed he wasn’t using his arm properly; it was the one that had been broken. Impulsively, she said, “Justin, is your arm still giving you trouble?” 

He nodded warily.

She carefully lifted it and turned it from side to side, trying not to cause him any pain. “Why wasn’t your arm fixed up from the start?” It hadn’t even been set, she realized now, just wrapped up and left to heal on its own. 

He shook his head wordlessly.

Zenobia flushed in sudden understanding. The cost of treatment with an osteo-regenerator was probably well beyond his family’s means. She wished there was something she could do to help. And then she realized, there just might be.

***  
It was Justin’s first time in a flitter, and he clutched the new PADD nervously in his good arm, while staring in unabashed wonder at the way the ground fell away below. Ignoring his half-hearted protests, Teacher had insisted on taking him to a med facility to get his arm fixed up. He knew he should refuse, but the chance of riding in a flitter was too exciting to turn down and it was easy to forget his worries – in particular how his parents would react – way up here. All too soon, however, they came in for a landing.

The med center was crowded with people rushing to and fro and shouting instructions. Justin stayed close to Teacher, not really understanding what was going on. After a while, they were shown into a small cubicle with a bed. A computer console sat at one side, a sink and several unfamiliar instruments on the other. At Teacher’s urging, Justin climbed awkwardly onto the bed and perched on the edge.

The doctor was a middle-aged man with a harried expression but surprisingly kind eyes. He ran a small buzzing scanner over Justin’s arm, and made small tut-tut sounds of his own as he did so. “Really, Ms. Parker, you would have been better advised to bring him in when the break was fresh. It’s been too many weeks – I’ll have to first rebreak the arm to set it properly.” 

_That_ part he did understand. At Teacher’s reassuring glance, Justin braced himself stoically, and was surprised when the doctor first pressed a hypospray against his neck. “This is an analgesic,” he said. Puzzling over the unfamiliar word, Justin felt a sudden deep warmth replace the ever-present ache in his arm. The doctor immediately grasped the arm and gave it a sharp pull to one side, then picked up another instrument. “Now I’ll use the osteo-generator.” 

Justin watched intently as the rod-shaped instrument passed over his forearm, although there was nothing visible going on from the outside. Inside his arm, however-- “That didn’t hurt,” he said in surprise.

The doctor smiled. “It wasn’t supposed to. Why don’t you move it around a bit and let me know how it feels.”

Justin cautiously flexed his arm, then lifted it over his head and swung it in a circle. “Hey, it’s like new!” 

Unobtrusively, the doctor picked up another small device and quietly ran it over the cuts and bruises Justin had on his face and other arm. He barely noticed them disappear.

“Are we done?” Justin asked, enthralled at how his arm felt like it used to, and eager to try it out.

“We are.” The doctor turned, preparatory to gathering up his instruments. “You can pay on your way out.”

Justin’s face fell. “My family--”

“Doesn’t owe anything,” Teacher said firmly. “I’m covering the cost of this myself.”

***  
Serena was out with the baby the next afternoon when Clem stumbled into the main room, his head throbbing. He ransacked the kitchen cabinets, looking for something to drink. Nothing. He carelessly knocked over the old rocker in his way. He could’ve sworn he’d stashed a bottle behind the sofa cushions as a precautionary measure, the last time he’d ostentatiously announced he was giving up drinking. Could he have drunk it already? Turning, he moved his search to the corner of the room, next to the old worn pallet Justin used as a bed.

Clem dropped to his knees, pawing through the box that held the boy’s few treasures, and straightened up when he found a PADD. He frowned; where had this come from? At that moment, the door to the apartment opened and Justin came in.

He froze at the sight of Clem, and then caught sight of what the older man held in his hands.

“That’s mine!” he burst out.

“A likely story, you rotten little thief!” Clem shouted as he got somewhat clumsily to his feet. He swayed slightly as he said, “Where did you get this from?”

“From school! Teacher gave it to me--”

“You mean you stole it,” Clem laughed derisively. “You think I’m stupid enough to believe your lies? That someone would give _you_ something valuable like this?” 

Clem’s normally fair complexion was bright red, his mousy hair and features contorted into an unrecognizable mask of anger. Recognizing the danger signals, Justin backed up, looking for somewhere to flee. 

With a quick snap, Clem pulled off his belt, and gripped the supple leather in his hands. “I’ll teach you not to steal!”

“No, please! I’ll give it back! I swear I’ll give it back!” Desperately, Justin tried to move out of range, but there was no escape. The end of the belt whipped out, catching him on the side of his head and spun him around. Clem advanced, striking another blow, this one to the back of his legs. With nowhere to run, Justin realized that he was trapped.

As Clem beat him into unconsciousness, his last thought was that at least his mother and the baby weren’t home. This time, there would be no accidental victims. 

***  
Zenobia looked up in surprise when Justin approached her desk. He’d been very quiet all day, even quieter than usual. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

Wordlessly, he held up a PADD. It took her a moment to recognize it as the one she’d given him just the other day. “Is there a problem with the PADD, Justin?” she asked.

“Take it back,” he said. “Please.”

“But why?” Zenobia asked, puzzled. “You were so excited when I gave it to you. There’s no reason to give it back.”

“I don’t want it anymore,” he mumbled. “I don’t like it.”

“Well, I have some others you might prefer instead—”

“No,” he said, quietly insistent. “Please, just take it.”

She caught sight then of the bright red marks on his face, until now hidden by his long dark hair. “What happened, Justin, did someone hit you?”

“No,” he said immediately. “No, I’m fine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Justin, I can see the bruises--”

“They’re old,” he said quickly. “These are the ones I had before.”

“The dermal regenerator healed those,” she pointed out. “At the same time we got your arm fixed. So that must mean--”

“The treatment wore off!” he cried out. He flung the PADD on her desk and rushed out.

Zenobia gazed after him, frustrated at her inability to help him, and feeling as if her heart would break.


	4. Chapter 4

“Try this first one, Justin,” Zenobia said, handing him a sheet of paper with a row of new trigonometry problems. “You’ll find it more of a challenge.”

He picked up the pencil and went right to work. As she’d expected, he easily spotted the relationship to the previous set of problems and solved it swiftly.

Despite the debacle with the PADD last year – she’d learned the hard way not to try to give him any more gifts – in the past few months, to Zenobia’s delight, Justin had begun to apply himself to the books and discovered he liked them. He didn’t display his enthusiasm outwardly, of course, as there was negative peer pressure, but she felt sure she was starting to get through to him. 

She’d tried more than once to talk to him about using education to get ahead. Everything she said, however, seemed to fall on deaf ears. “You _do_ like math, Justin,” she said now. “I can see by the look on your face when you’re solving something.”

“They’re just tricks with numbers,” he said deprecatingly.

“What do you mean, tricks?”

“It just makes sense to manipulate them that way, it’s like it’s part of a pattern…” he trailed off, perhaps frustrated that he wasn’t expressing himself clearly. He impatiently pushed a stubborn lock of hair out of his eyes. “It’s easy, that’s what I’m saying. Anyone can do this.”

“As I’m sure you’ve realized by now, that’s not true. Not everyone has your prowess with numbers, let alone your ability to remember previous proofs.” Zenobia raised her voice to forestall his protests. “You’ve got a real gift, Justin – you can do something with this if you really wanted.”

Justin shrugged. They were alone in the classroom; the other students had long since left for the day. In her effort to keep him interested in school, she’d been giving him extra assignments, most of which he managed to solve with alacrity after giving it some thought. 

In this special one-on-one time, she also tried to speak with him about subjects other than schoolwork in an effort to get to know him better. “But what are you interested in?” she’d asked him once. “What do you do in your free time?”

“Hang out with my friends.”

“On the streets, you mean.” She pursed her lips in disapproval. “Running with the gangs.”

“Yeah.” He correctly interpreted her expression. “It’s not like what you think, Teacher. Rafe and the rest of the Rads, they’re good people. I know a lot of what they do seems to go against the law, but they help out a lot of folks who otherwise wouldn’t have anything, keep them from being hurt.”

It was common knowledge that the local gangs fought over the pitiful few resources available, increasingly victimizing those still weaker. It was a vicious cycle, Zenobia thought despairingly. _The poor get poorer, the rich get richer, and there is less to go around, and so people get more desperate and join more gangs._ She tried to keep the cynicism out of her voice. “I’m sure you look up to them, Justin, but you can set your sights so much higher.”

“Can I?” He laughed sardonically, the expression on his face suddenly making him seem far older than his eleven years. “It don’t matter what I like to do, or what I want. When I’m old enough, I’m going to work in the mines – what else could I do?”

She opened her mouth to object, then felt a stab of chagrin at his rebuff. Of course he couldn’t see much of a future beyond the mines. “Maybe you wouldn’t have to stay on Klatus Prime,” she said carefully. “You could go off planet one day.”

He paused, his fascination with her words clearly warring with practicality. “ _Me_ , go off planet? What would I do?”

“Anything you want!” she exclaimed, then considered more deeply. “Maybe you could become a pilot. Or an engineer! Those fields require good math skills.”

For just a moment, the possibilities she brought up seemed to pique his interest, but almost immediately, he shook his head. “You know, Teacher, you’re real smart when it comes to school subjects,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “But you’re kind of lacking when it comes to street smarts.”

He turned back to the paper expectantly. She bit back her words and watched him tackle the next problem.

***  
Justin ducked down to avoid the blow aimed at his head. He hadn’t been involved in many of the gang’s fights until recently; this was only the third fight he’d been in, and the first against the rival Trons. He’d started as a lookout for the Rads – Rafe’s gang - when he was nine. Within the next two years, after he showed he could slip away quietly and maintain his composure under pressure, he’d increasingly been sent on surveillance of a rival faction, or the next business establishment the Rads had targeted. Moving up to become a fighter was the next logical step. Comprised of roughly a dozen young toughs, the Rads always welcomed good fighters. And Justin welcomed the chance to show his worth. He wasn’t afraid of pain or getting hurt – for which he could thank his home life.

Conscious that his small size was a liability, he waited his opportunity, then aimed a kick at his opponent’s knee cap. Expecting to see the Tron fighter only momentarily discomfited, Justin was surprised to see the larger boy go down, clutching at his groin in real pain. He’d aimed too high, but the end result was even better than anticipated. Breaking into a grin, Justin was startled when a blow struck him from behind, nearly knocking him off his feet.

“Keep your eyes open!” Rafe called as he took out Justin’s latest attacker. Embarrassed, Justin quickly nodded, and threw himself back into the fray.

It was all over within a few minutes. Exultant, Justin and the other members of the gang watched the Trons turn tail and run. “Today is a good day!” exulted Kory. He was only a couple of years older than Justin, but had already achieved full status as a member of the gang.

“We sure showed them who’s boss,” agreed Lance. “They’ll think twice before messin’ with us again!” Next to him, Abner, who never spoke much, nodded emphatically.

In high spirits, they headed back to the old warehouse which the Rads used as their headquarters. 

Justin helped himself to a drink of water, feeling good if a little sore. Other than a freshly torn shirt and a bloody nose, he was in good shape. All in all, he’d managed to acquit himself pretty well. 

“Hey, kid,” Jack called.

Justin stiffened. Rafe’s second in command had never made a secret of the fact that he didn’t like him, and never let an opportunity pass by to belittle him. “Yeah?” Justin said, attempting to sound unconcerned. 

“What do you call what you just did, back there?” Jack demanded, his sharp features set in a mocking expression.

Justin looked up at the older boy, trying not to let his nervousness show. “I call it fighting.”

“Yeah? Damn pitiful display if I ever saw one.” Jack took a swig from his beer bottle. “You’re lucky Rafe was keeping an eye on you, or you would’ve been squashed flatter than a pancake.” 

Justin clenched his fists but willed himself to remain silent.

“Actually, I’m surprised you didn’t just turn tail and vamoose,” Jack taunted. “I thought you were gonna just run away like a little scaredy cat.” 

“I’m not afraid,” Justin said immediately, “of anything.” 

“No, you’re not,” Rafe interrupted. “Jack, leave the kid alone.” 

“Yeah, pick on someone your own size,” added Lucinda – Lucy – from her spot next to Rafe on the battered divan. Her blond hair gleamed in the dim light as she tenderly wiped away the blood streaming from a cut above Rafe’s brow. Satisfied with her efforts, she picked up a small rod Justin recognized as a dermal regenerator. 

“You done good, kid,” Rafe said, flexing his well-muscled shoulders, and Justin felt a glow of pride at his mentor’s approval. “Tomorrow I’ll show you how to improve your technique. We’ll make an even better fighter out of you.” 

The next day was Saturday; no school. “I’ll be here, Rafe,” Justin promised and then was distracted as Lucy began running the dermal regenerator over Rafe’s cut. He watched, fascinated, as the wound slowly disappeared. It reminded him of when Teacher – Ms. Parker, he reminded himself – had taken him to the medical facility a couple of years ago. He’d been too scared to fully appreciate what was going on, but he still remembered just how incredible it was to see an injury vanish as if it had been erased. 

Having finished with a bruise on Rafe’s chest, Lucy turned to Justin with a smile. “Hey, Tiger, want me to fix up your injury?” She gestured at a long scrape on Justin’s arm that he hadn’t even been aware of. 

He shook his head. “No, I’m good.”

“You sure?” Lucy asked, leaning closer. He caught the light scent of her perfume, and shook his head once more.

“I’ve got something you can fix,” Jack drawled, leaning closer.

Lucy snapped the instrument case shut. “The offer wasn't meant for you.” 

“Why’d you offer it to the kid and not to me?” Jack demanded. 

“Because he's cute,” Lucy said and smoothed Justin's hair back off his forehead. 

Rafe laughed. “She’s got you there.” Jack sneered but didn’t say anything.

Lucy playfully ran her hand down the side of Justin’s face, coming to a rest at the point of his cleft chin. "Just look at those eyes. He's going to be a real lady-killer one day, aren't you, honey?" 

Justin ducked his head, embarrassed, but he couldn’t help but admit he liked the way she touched him. He had recently started to notice girls; Lucy _was_ a real looker, even prettier than Ms. Parker. 

Lucy laughed, but without rancor, and turned her attention back to Rafe. After a few more moments, the two of them got up and went into another room, firmly closing the door behind them. 

Justin watched them go. As the conversation among the Rads turned to other topics, he thought it would be nice to one day have a girl of his own who adored him like Lucy did Rafe.

***  
Justin tried to avoid being home as much as possible, dividing his time between school and Rafe’s headquarters. Ms. Parker’s encouragement helped a great deal, even though Justin didn’t really believe it really was within his power to change anything. Rafe’s help was of a more practical type – the tow-headed leader of the Rads offered a place to stay when Clem was quicker with his fists than usual, as well as food, tips on improving his defensive skills, even advice about women. Only six years older, he treated Justin more like a little brother than just another member of the gang. Rafe genuinely seemed to like having him around, never acted like Justin was a nuisance. As a result, Justin’s admiration and hero-worship for the gang-leader increased even more.

At home these days, Serena’s manner was even more defeated; she startled more easily, seemed to be trying even harder to keep things on an even keel – and avoid setting Clem off. Clem's temper was worse, and his drinking had intensified. Several months earlier, he’d lost his job. The official story was he’d been laid off because of a mine cave-in, but Justin suspected the real reason was that Clem had missed too many shifts because he was too drunk to show up. Serena had started working as a house cleaner, but she couldn’t work consistently as she had no steady childcare. Recently, they’d moved to an even cheaper place and necessities like food and clothing had been even scarcer. 

The only bright spot in that house was the baby, Kallie, now grown into a sweet toddler. Each evening when Justin came home, Kallie came running to meet him.

“Justin! Justin!” she cried excitedly, lifting her arms to be picked up. He swung her to his shoulder and hugged her, feeling the softness of her cheek against his and smelling the sweet scent of her hair.

He would play with her or tell her a story, enjoying her rapt attention. No matter how tired he was, or apprehensive about something, being in Kallie’s untroubled world for those few minutes made it all that much more bearable. 

Clem, surprisingly, seemed fond of Kallie, too - when he was sober. He’d never lifted a hand to her – so far. Just the thought of it filled Justin with rage. He swore he would never let anything happen to her, though it was mostly an empty gesture. Clem still regularly targeted _him_ ; if he couldn’t protect himself, how could he protect Kallie? 

***  
Justin circled warily around the room, his arms raised. He kept his eyes on Rafe, waiting for him to make his move. They were in the main bay of the old warehouse where the Rads based their operations and Rafe was making good on his promise to teach Justin to fight properly.

“Protect your head,” Rafe called out as he feinted and then jabbed Justin in the jaw. “Protect _your head_. Don’t let me get inside your guard. Yes, like that,” he said as Justin deflected a second blow from his face. Rafe then promptly buried his fist in Justin’s belly, and the younger boy doubled over, his arms instinctively moving to clutch his lower abdomen in pain.

Rafe shook his head. “What did I just say? You just left your head vulnerable again!” He punctuated the last word with another stinging blow to the jaw.

Justin swore under his breath but lifted his arms once more, keeping Rafe from landing another hit above his shoulders.

“Good,” Rafe said. “Take all the beating on your body, you can't be knocked unconscious if you get hit there.”

“It still _hurts_ ,” Justin ground out, though he knew that Rafe was pulling his punches for the most part. They didn’t hurt _too_ much and were light enough that they wouldn’t leave any bruises either. Unfortunately, Justin knew all too well what it felt like to get beaten up by someone who didn’t hold back, or care how much damage he inflicted. “What about my chest and stomach? Shouldn’t I worry about hurting something inside there?”

Rafe briefly drew to a halt, considering. “OK, maybe protect the kidneys a bit; otherwise you'll be pissing blood after a fight.”

Justin nodded, panting to catch his breath. Rafe eyed him for a moment, and then began to circle once more. He let loose another volley of hits to Justin’s lower abdomen. “Wait until your opponent lowers their arms to their belly in response to the punishment you're giving out,” Rafe said, picking up the pace. He didn’t seem at all winded, though his face and arms were coated with sweat. “That's your chance to go for their head and knock them out with one blow.” 

He demonstrated; as Justin instinctively lowered his arms to cushion the area of impact, Rafe took a powerful swing at Justin’s head.

But this time, Justin managed to get his arm back up in time to catch the side of Rafe’s fist and stop it from hitting him.

Rafe smiled broadly. “Good. You’re finally getting the hang of it.”

***  
Serena placed the bowl of stew in front of Justin. With a perfunctory nod of thanks, he picked up his spoon, and then stopped.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a large ugly bruise on her wrist.

Serena hastily pulled the end of her sleeve over the offending mark. “Nothing, I banged my arm, that’s all.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing,” Justin said, feeling the anger rising within. “ _He_ did this to you, didn’t he?”

“No, really, Justin, it’s fine-”

“He shouldn’t be hurting you!” Justin burst out. “He’s a monster and—”

“And what?” Clem said, as the door slammed behind him. “You’ve got something to say to me, boy?”

Justin blanched but remained steadfast. He slowly rose to his feet. “You shouldn’t lay a hand on Mama.”

“Who the hell do you think you are, boy, telling me what I can do? This is _my_ house, she is _my_ wife, and you can shut your God damn mouth!” Clem advanced rapidly until he was directly in front of Justin, his breathing fast and unsteady.

“I said you should leave her alone.”

“Or what? You gonna make me, boy? You and what army?” Clem gave him a shove and sent him sprawling.

As soon as he regained his balance, Justin swung his fist and connected with Clem’s jaw. Clem stared at him for a moment in disbelief. “WHAT did you just do?” He grabbed the boy’s shoulders and slammed him against the wall. “How dare you lay a hand on me!”

Justin tried to fight him off, but Clem outweighed him by a good 50 kilograms. Justin twisted desperately, but instead of trying to get away, did his best to fight back. His recent experiences in the gang’s fights stood him in good stead – at least for the first few seconds. But there was no one to help him, no one to have his back, and Clem’s physical advantage was too overwhelming.

Serena screamed, and Kallie began to cry.

“Get her out of here!” Justin called. “Get her someplace safe!” He didn’t see if she had or not. Clem had him in a full nelson and was repeatedly banging his head against the wall.

“I’ll teach you to disrespect me!” Clem screamed, punctuating each word with another slam. Justin was aware of little but excruciating pain, only barely cognizant of the blood flowing from his nose. At the last blow, the little utility closet door swung open. Reflexively, Clem shoved him inside and slammed the door, then latched it shut.

All at once, Justin was encased in solid darkness. The closet was not very high; there was barely a few inches between the top of his head and the ceiling. The space was narrow enough that Justin couldn’t entirely turn around. He tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t. He felt the walls closing in. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough air and he felt like he was suffocating. A long high scream was torn from his throat. “Let me out! Please, I can’t breathe! Please, Da, I’m sorry! I take it back, I take it all back! Please, let me out!” 

But there was no answer. Justin pounded as hard as he could, but no one came to let him out. He screamed and sobbed, until finally, mercifully, he blacked out.

Two hours later, when Clem finally opened the door, Justin staggered and fell out. He lay there practically insensate for a long moment, only gradually becoming aware of his surroundings – and a strong unpleasant odor. With a grimace, he realized he had pissed himself. He managed to get to his feet, and went to clean himself up.

 _He’d finally fought back, but it hadn’t made a difference_. Justin set his jaw, resolved that one day, it wouldn’t be in vain.


	5. Chapter 5

Justin’s twelfth birthday marked his last day in school. Zenobia had known this day was coming; according to law, school attendance was only mandated (and free) until age 12, and only a privileged few on Klatus Prime could afford continued education. For the majority who couldn’t, they could find legal work in the mines as soon as they reached that age. The reward of a few credits for their families for backbreaking work seemed to many like a fair exchange. 

On that last day, Justin lingered in the classroom until the other students had gone. She watched him fiddling with some papers in his desk, feeling angry at his wasted potential, not to mention sick with worry over what would become of him.

At last, Justin straightened up and made his way over to her desk, as he had done so many times before. But instead of sitting and working together on additional assignments, she steeled herself to hear his goodbye.

“Ms. Parker, I just wanted to…” he started to say, his voice cracking, and then he stopped. “Thank you,” he said, his eyes meeting hers. “I appreciate everything you did for me.”

“I wish I could have done more,” she said, trying to keep her own voice from shaking. “You’re an amazing student, Justin. If only…”

“It’s all right,” he said. From the look on his face, she saw that he really _did_ understand what she was trying to say. With a start, she realized he was no longer the scrawny little street urchin who had first shown up in her classroom three years earlier. His clothes were worn and patched, but clean. He still had a lot of growing to do, but he was nearly as tall as she was, and his slender frame hinted at the power he would one day have. There was a hint of down upon his cheeks and chin. His long black hair, which always looked as though it needed combing, came to just above his shoulders, and his alert green eyes were alive with intelligence. Without thinking, she reached out and gave him a hug.

He stiffened, and then his arms tightened around her. They clung together for a long moment, with her drawing comfort from the embrace as much as offering it. And then she abruptly pulled away, suddenly conscious of how this would look to an observer.

She took a deep breath, trying to still the pounding of her heart. “Goodbye, Justin,” she said.

His eyes flashed with a series of emotions and then, without another word, he was gone.

***  
Justin got on the open-sided elevator with a group of six; he guessed most of them were about his age, though he was the tallest of the group. “Keep your hands and feet inside the cage at all times,” cautioned Supervisor Marley before taking them down. As the elevator plunged down at ear-popping speed, Marley remarked, “This shaft extends to a depth of 1600 meters, or just under a mile. The longer a mine is in operation, the farther you need to go to find new veins.” He paused. “This particular mine has been operating for more than three decades.” 

After just a few minutes, the cage stopped moving and the group shuffled out at Marley’s direction. They stood in a large chamber carved out of the earth with bright LED lights hung at intervals on the walls. Despite this, the sides of the chamber were wreathed in shadows and the ceiling was lost to sight in the darkness. 

A strange metallic odor assaulted Justin’s nostrils, dry and dusty with a hint of something else he couldn’t identify. The air was much warmer than it was above ground; already he could feel sweat gathering on his brow and under his arms. Glancing around, Justin saw that even though this was as far as the cage went, the shaft itself continued downward. “How far does this go?” he asked.

“Another 500 meters,” Marley said. “That’s a new vein that is still in the process of being opened up for mining.”

“How do you get down there?” asked another boy who Justin realized was Bobby Ando; they’d been in the same class together in school a few years ago. He had no idea what Bobby had been doing since.

Marley answered, “By rail, on chairlifts, on foot…it depends how far you go. All told, it can take more than two hours to go _all_ the way down.” He gestured to a woman who had quietly approached the group. She was wearing a hardhat and work coveralls which did nothing to disguise her gender. “This is Supervisor Winetka, she’ll take it from here.”

Winetka surveyed them silently for a moment. “First, you all need proper gear. Helmets first; you’ll get your coveralls and boots later, after orientation when we decide which groups you’ll join.” 

“You’d think they’d have done orientation back up on the surface,” muttered the lone girl in their group. “Shouldn’t they first have decided who goes where?”

This made excellent sense to Justin, but if either of the supervisors heard, they chose not to answer.

Justin went with the others to pick up a hardhat and put it on. As he did so, he looked up toward the ceiling and couldn’t help but shudder. The darkness seemed to be weighing down on them all. Sternly, he ordered himself to relax; he could feel the air currents playing against his face. He still couldn’t shake the closed in feeling, but he knew he had no choice but to get used to it.

“A mine is a hostile environment,” Winetka said, unconsciously echoing Justin’s thoughts. “There are dangers everywhere - explosives, heavy machinery and hundreds of human beings must be ferried about with a lot of earth above them. Sometimes that earth rebels.” She touched a control and a visual display sprang to life. “Some background: veins are the result of crystalline growth on the walls of planar fractures in the rocks, with the crystal protruding into open space. The simplest starts with a crack that’s already present. The crack might form during folding of the rock in mountain-building processes, by shattering during tectonic events, by a decrease in pressure during the uplift of a rock, or because a rock cools down and shrinks.” She held up a dark gray rock. “This is dilithium in its raw, unrefined form.” She smiled at the gasps from the group. “Yes, I know, you were expecting a translucent piece of crystal, similar to quartz. But that comes much later, after a lot of refining, cutting and then polishing. _This_ is what you’ll be digging.”

“All of us?” asked another boy. “My cousin told me there’s lots of different jobs inside the mine, like technicians, or electricians or metallurgical engineers.”

“There are,” Winetka said. “None of your group, however, are skilled laborers. You’ll be the drillers, the blasters, the welders, the ones doing the heavy manual labor.”

“Isn’t there any machinery?” someone else asked.

“There are conveyor belts to haul the crystals, powered equipment to dig them out,” put in Marley, “but you’ll still be using plenty of muscle.”

Within a short period of time, Justin found himself dressed in a baggy beige and tan coverall, and steel-toed boots that didn’t quite fit him. The protective helmet felt heavy on his head; he wasn’t sure if it made him feel more safe or uneasy. The boys were split into different groups; he and Bobby were together and assigned to the ‘scrapers’, responsible for picking up the loose rock for initial assay purposes in a new section.

“We’re going to start you off easy, seeing as how it’s your first day,” Winetka said. Justin later wondered how it could have been any harder. They were run ragged, back and forth across the crest of the ‘slope’, lifting rocks and tossing them into the collection bins. The rocks varied in size from just fitting inside the palm of his hand to needing two arms just to encircle it. Gravel-size and smaller was left in place as not worth picking up. 

At least one or two of the other boys couldn’t take the physical demands and quit by mid-morning. Justin was tempted to as well; his legs were sore and his lower back ached, and the palms of his hands were scraped raw. But he knew he had no choice but to stick it out. 

“Seems to me they could have given us shovels,” grumbled one boy, who answered to Kyler. 

“Or just have a giant tube suck up all the loose rock,” said the girl. Justin silently concurred.

“What, you thought we were going to use the heavy equipment, just like that?” Bobby said, correctly interpreting Justin’s expression. 

“No, we’re kids,” Justin said, quickly recovering. “They got to give us stuff we can actually do. And they’ll have to train us to use any equipment. But I thought they were supposed to be starting us off easy.”

Bobby laughed. “They are -- being kids just means we only work 8 hour shifts. Can’t work 12-hour rotations or double shifts until you’re 14. But they’re only sticklers about the time – they’ll have us do whatever we can, physically.”

“How do you know so much about it?”

“My uncle told me,” Bobby said. “Shoot, didn’t your old man tell you anything? You’re a legacy, just like me. That’s how you got here, after all. If you’ve got a relative already working in the mines, it’s easier to get hired. Plenty of folks wish they could be in our shoes!”

Bobby’s comment that he owed his current position to Clem was enough to stir Justin to anger. 

_“Don’t let Da know I’m working in the mines now,” he’d cautioned his mother before setting out that morning. He couldn’t help the spiteful note in his voice as he added, “He’d probably just try to grab anything I earn for drink.”_

_Serena’s lips tightened, but all she said aloud was, “It will be hard to keep it a secret.”_

_“Da doesn’t take any interest in me except as a punching bag,” Justin said bitterly. “Believe me, he won't notice or care that I’m not in school anymore.”_

Now Justin bristled at the implication that he was just like Clem. “I’m nothing like him,” he muttered fiercely to himself. That crazy old drunkard – the memory of Clem, his face twisted with rage and his fist raised to strike, rose to mind. With a shudder, Justin banished the image.

“Hey, it won’t be so bad,” Bobby said, clearly drawing his own conclusion about what had gotten Justin spooked. “We’re kids, after all. They can’t expect too much from us, right?”

The first day just set the tone for all the ones that followed. Justin quickly learned for himself that it was back breaking labor for _everyone_ , not just his group. The conditions under which they worked were not safe. The older, more experienced miners crouched low, their bodies vibrating as the pneumatic drills they wielded penetrated the rock. As Justin would learn later, the sensation of holding one of those drills was akin to feeling like your arms were being ripped off. The muscles still shook for several minutes after the motors were turned off. 

Another group of miners scrambled up and down the slope, securing the rock above them. The sound of drills and scrapers all operating at once was deafening. The boys darted forward, lifting the chunks of fallen rocks and tossing them into the carts. It was filthy, difficult work. A ton of rock yielded less than a kilo of polished, usable crystals. 

Justin felt uneasy, so far below the planet’s surface. The lack of natural light, the often too-narrow chambers, continued to make him tremble and sweat. It felt almost like he was buried alive. He had to fight against that panicky feeling. It quickly became apparent that he was not alone; some of the other boys were having a harder time than he was.

His first week, he saw a man's legs crushed when a piece of equipment failed. After a long delay, the medic finally showed up, pausing only to administer a painkiller before calling for transport back to the surface. His expression clearly showed that there was little else he could do to help.

Day or night, the shift rotations never stopped. The hours were long and punishing, the only break coming at mid-shift when the miners crowded around the replicators to get their one hot meal.

His days at school seemed long ago, as if they’d taken place in another plane of existence entirely. It was only at night, when Justin was exhausted and waiting for sleep to claim him that he thought of the classroom - and Ms. Parker. His memories of sitting and working math problems with Ms. Parker were far removed from the harsh reality of his daily existence. Sometimes, he remembered their embrace and the curious sensation of her breasts pressing against his chest. He put those thoughts out of mind. To do otherwise would lead to nothing good.

As the weeks turned into months, he became inured to the hard labor and advanced in the type of tasks he could perform as he grew in physical size and strength. The very long hours kept him from spending too much time at home, which was a good thing. It also effectively kept him away from the gang, though he did occasionally have contact with Rafe and the others. 

He never ceased hating the work, or grew accustomed to the hours spent underground. Sometimes, when he contemplated his future, he was tempted to give in to despair. But his duty to his mother and sister, knowing how much they depended on him and the credits he earned, kept him deep below the surface. 

***  
From outside the apartment, Justin could hear Kallie crying. He burst into the main living area and saw her huddled in the farthest corner, sobbing as if her heart would break. Serena was crouched next to her, murmuring in a low voice and patting her back in an attempt to console her.

“Kallie? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Justin dropped to his knees on the floor beside Kallie, but she didn’t look up or acknowledge his presence.

Growing seriously alarmed, Justin turned to his mother. “What happened to her?”

Before Serena could answer, Kallie raised her head. Her face was red and her eyelashes stuck together with tears. “Da,” she choked out. “He…” She stopped, clearly unable to continue.

Justin felt his expression harden. “Da hurt you? Is that what happened?”

“No!” Serena said. “It wasn’t like that.” She took a deep breath and repeated, “It wasn’t like that, Justin.”

Ignoring his mother for the moment, Justin sat back on his heels and picked up Kallie. He hugged her to him tightly. “What is it, Kallie? What did Da do to make you cry like this?”

She mumbled something he didn’t quite catch.

“Say it again, Kallie,” he asked, stroking her hair. “Tell me, baby.”

Finally, with much coaxing, the story tumbled out of her. Kallie had found a kitten out in the alley and wanted very much to keep it. She’d already known that there was not much chance she would be allowed to do so, but… 

“She got her heart set on it,” Justin said softly, his eyes meeting Serena’s over Kallie’s head.

Serena nodded. “She asked if she could keep it, but he said we can barely feed ourselves, let alone an animal.” She sighed. “He’s not entirely wrong, you know.”

Justin nodded curtly. He saw the sense in this, but at the same time he was willing to bet a bar of gold-pressed latinum that Clem had tossed off the words carelessly, if not angrily, not knowing or caring that he was crushing his daughter’s dream. 

Kallie stirred in his arms and lifted her head from his shoulder. “Da said it better be gone by the time he came back. He said the last thing we need is more… _verming_ , that there’s already too much of that around.” She raised her chin defiantly. “He’s _not verming_ , I named him Fluffy, and he’s--”

Justin met Serena’s eyes once more. “So you let it loose outside?” he asked in a low voice.

“She begged me to let her keep it a little longer, and I said okay, so she could say a proper goodbye. But then she refused to budge,” Serena said unhappily.

“You mean it’s still in the apartment?”

“Yes, but I don’t know where!” Serena exclaimed. “She hid it somewhere, and when I tried to ask her where it was, she became hysterical and insisted she wasn’t going to give up Fluffy!”

Justin sighed. “Kallie, I want to ask you something.”

“I don’t want to tell you! You’re going to take him away!”

“Kallie, I promise I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do,” Justin said, though inwardly he wondered just how he was going to accomplish that. “But I need you to tell me.” 

Kallie shook her head violently. “No!”

“Do you trust me?” Justin asked his sister, and breathed a sigh of relief when she responded with a nod. “Kallie, where is Fluffy now?”

“Over here.” Kallie scooted off his lap and went to the door of the little utility closet.

Justin had a bad moment as the door swung open, overcome with the memory of being shut inside. He forced himself to lean in to the darkness and take a closer look. He was rewarded with a faint “meow,” and saw the silhouette of the shivering little cat. He picked it up and winced as it dug its tiny claws into his arm. Backing out, he handed the kitten to Kallie, noting in passing that it was a male. She wrapped her arms around it gently, and it promptly started to purr. It was very young; its golden-green eyes were open but only just, and it was thin, almost emaciated looking. It was barely more than a handful of charcoal-colored fur and bones.

Justin came to a rapid decision. “The first thing we’re going to do is get Fluffy properly fixed up. He needs food, probably some medicine, and a proper place to sleep.” He got to his feet.

Kallie’s face shone with hope. “Oh, Justin!”

“Justin,” cautioned Serena. “You can’t--”

“Actually, I can,” he replied firmly. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve been working in the mines for more than a year. I can afford to spend a few credits on Kallie’s pet.”

***  
Several hours later, Clem entered the apartment, stumbling and just catching himself in time before falling. Kallie was sitting on the floor next to a large cardboard box that had been set near the heater. Clem’s eyes narrowed when he saw the little cat purring in Kallie’s arms, then moved to Justin who was looking at him defiantly. 

“What’s this?” Clem blustered “What’s that animal doing here? I thought I said to get rid of it!” 

Slowly, Justin rose to his feet. “It’s for keeping the vermin population down,” he said, his voice a clear challenge. His scarred hands, knotted into fists, hung loosely at his sides but gave the impression they could swing into action with little hesitation. Clem suddenly realized with some surprise that Justin was his own height or maybe even a hair taller. 

Ignoring the byplay between her father and brother, Kallie looked up at Clem pleadingly, her eyes threatening to spill over with tears.

Clem wavered for a moment. “Well, I guess it won’t do any harm to let it stay,” he said at last, giving in. To save face, he added, “Just make sure the damn animal earns its keep.”

“Oh, it will, Da!” Kallie exclaimed. “You’ll see. He’s gonna be the best ratter ever!” 

But Clem’s eyes were on Justin, whose smile made him uncomfortable, as if he’d won some sort of victory.


	6. Chapter 6

Justin continued working in the mines. When he turned 14, he hit a growth spurt, rapidly growing taller and stronger till he was around 6 feet. The hard manual labor was a factor in his developing musculature, as well as the improved nutrition in the meals he received while on shift.

One afternoon, work came to a total halt due to an equipment breakdown when the automated cart system, used to convey the raw rocks for further processing and refining, went offline; multiple carts had jumped the track. Rumor had it that a repair crew from Siran – a city on the opposite side of the planet - had been sent for and was not expected to arrive until the next morning at the earliest. In the meantime, one of the local techies was attempting to get the lead cart back on track.

Taking advantage of the unexpected break, the miners clustered in small groups, some standing and others sitting on the bare rock, talking among themselves.

“Think they’ll let us go early?” a teenaged boy asked. He was relatively new to the shift; Justin couldn’t recall his name.

Brackman, one of the senior members on the crew, laughed rudely. “Not a chance,” he said. “They’ll find something else to keep us busy for the duration. Like hauling the rock manually, for example.”

The newbie blanched. “You think so?”

“Maybe,” said Ando nonchalantly. “I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“You know the real reason they’re keeping us here, don’t you?” put in Ariana, who was one of the few women on that shift. “Assuming by some miracle that the techie _can_ get things working again, it’ll take too long to recall the whole crew.”

“Better enjoy this break while you can,” advised Brackman. To illustrate his words, he pulled a small flask from his coverall’s pocket, took a swig and passed it to the man next to him. Nearby, another man inhaled deeply from a narrow glass vial which contained a plant suspension in alcohol at the base.

“Snakeleaf?” asked Ando instantly. “Hey, Tomer, can I have some?”

“Get your own,” Tomer immediately replied. “You still owe me three strips of latinum from the last time.”

“What’re you gonna do to pass the time, Ariana?” asked Ando. “Did you bring your needlepoint?”

“Fuck off, Ando,” Ariana replied in a bored tone as she leaned back and closed her eyes.

Justin thought about doing the same. He was exhausted, but the hard ground, littered with shards of sharp rocks, wasn’t exactly an inviting place to sit or lie down. He paced back and forth a bit, then stopped when he realized he might be disturbing the other members of his team.

He drifted over to the track where the techie, an old man called McKenna, was working. Rumor had it that McKenna had been a miner till he’d lost a leg in an accident, and Justin had no reason not to believe it was true. Justin watched as McKenna abandoned the control panel he’d been working on and painfully lowered himself to the ground. He wriggled beneath the chassis of the lead cart, muttering to himself all the while.

“Hand me that hyperspanner,” McKenna snapped.

“You talking to me?” Justin said, startled.

“If you’re going to stand there blocking the light, you might as well make yourself useful,” the old man retorted. 

Justin glanced at the open toolkit and after a brief evaluation, selected a tool and handed it to him. 

“Not that, you young idiot!” McKenna raged. “That’s a turbo-wrench. What I want is a hyperspanner. And more specifically, the 0.5 mm one that will fit this junction.”

Justin kept his voice mild. “Can you describe what it looks like?”

McKenna swore under his breath. “What kind of fool doesn’t know what a hyperspanner looks like?”

“Do you want my help or not?” 

After a few more seconds of grumbling, McKenna impatiently described the tool he wanted. Justin handed it to him (after successfully guessing McKenna wanted the smaller of the two hyperspanners) and crouched down to watch the techie work. 

“What exactly are you doing?” Justin asked, though he figured the odds were McKenna would just ignore him. 

But the old man surprised him by answering. “The gears are stripped.”

“So you’re trying to fix it,” Justin said, stating the obvious. “But I thought they needed to bring in a specialist.”

“Fixing the gears is easy,” McKenna said crankily. 

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is I’m just going to have to fix this again – for the twentieth time – because it’s gonna derail once more.”

“How do you know?”

“The carts are leaping the track because the velocity and angle are wrong,” McKenna said as he struggled to a sitting position, “or maybe the axles can’t bear that much weight. _That_ , I can fix. But there’s too many other things that can go wrong.” He spat angrily to the side. “The whole damn system needs to be reprogrammed, but I can’t do that because I’m just a techie. I can do simple repairs but for something this complex, you need an engineer.”

Justin picked up the worn PADD lying next to the tool box. “Are these the system specs?”

“Yeah, for all the good it’ll do me. I _told_ Marley we need an engineer permanently stationed here, but he says a properly trained one costs too much to keep on site when a mine has been in operation as long as this one and the crystal’s mostly petered out. It makes more sense for the company engineers to be at the new digs over in Siran. So he hands me the damn manual and tells me to try to figure it out!” The outrage in McKenna’s voice clearly expressed his opinion of that arrangement. 

“Mind if I borrow this?” Justin asked.

McKenna shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

The next day, before his shift started, Justin sought out McKenna in the main building complex on the surface to return the PADD.

“You finished with that, boy?” McKenna said, smirking as he accepted the PADD and tucked it away in his tool box. “That is, assuming you can even read. Or did you get just far enough to figure out it was way over your head?”

Justin ignored the insults. “Did the engineer arrive from Siran?”

McKenna shook his head. “No. Now the foreman says he won’t be here till the end of the week.” He slammed down the lid of the tool box with more force than it required. “Looks like your crew is gonna be shifted to other duties until the repairs can be carried out. Or else they’ll just send you home – docking your pay because you’re not working, of course.”

Justin kept his voice level, ignoring McKenna’s overt hostility which seemed to be directed at him personally. “I have some suggestions of how to reprogram the system – or rather, the specifications needed to bring everything back into alignment.”

McKenna stared at Justin. “Is this a joke, boy?”

“I’m serious,” Justin said. “I think I know how you can fix this – not a stopgap measure, but permanently.”

“And how do you know that?”

“It’s in the manual,” Justin said patiently. “Look, I can show you.”

McKenna shook his head. “I can’t let you access the system, not without the proper authorization.”

“You won’t have to – I can tell you what to do.”

“I don’t have the authority to attempt something like this on my own,” McKenna hedged.

“Then take it up with the higher-ups,” Justin insisted. “We can repair this. I know we can.”

McKenna hesitated a long moment, then nodded. “I must be out of my mind,” he muttered under his breath.

Two hours later, McKenna watched in disbelief as Justin showed him, and a handful of supervisors, how to reconfigure the control board. Though he didn’t outwardly show his nervousness, Justin was relieved when his proposal worked.

“Damned if I know how you did that, boy,” McKenna said as they returned to the public areas in the main building complex. “You figured that out just by reading the manual?”

“And doing some calculations,” Justin said. “It’s not that complicated.”

A few weeks later, Justin had just gone off shift when he encountered McKenna hard at work on the relay component of the main elevator system. He stopped to offer his help, which McKenna eagerly accepted. Within a short period of time, Justin had struck up a friendship with the old man and was learning some of the technical aspects involved in keeping the mining station systems running.

“You’ve got a real knack for this,” McKenna pronounced on more than one occasion, and he gladly loaned him the rest of the tech manuals he had at his disposal.

To Justin, the technical issues were puzzles to be solved. He enjoyed using his brain for a change; it was a welcome respite from the never ending grind of manual labor which comprised his daily shifts in the mine.

***   
Justin made his way through the main commercial district, on his way home after a double shift. There were facilities on premise where the miners could stay when they were off-duty, but Justin hadn’t been home for nearly a week and missed seeing Serena and Kallie. At 5 years of age, Kallie was developing into a lively and entertaining person and he could already see glimmers of what she’d be like as an adult. Lost in thought, he nearly missed hearing someone call his name.

“Hey, Justin!”

He turned and grinned when he saw a familiar tow-headed figure coming his way. “Rafe, how are you?”

“Thought you might be getting too high and mighty to say hi to an old friend,” Rafe said with an answering grin. He eyed the younger teen. “Now that you’re all respectable, holding down a full-time job.”

“More than full time,” Justin said, thinking of all the extra hours he’d put in this past week. But at time and a half compensation, he wouldn’t say no to overtime. Especially as it paid to put a roof over his mother and sister’s heads, not to mention he was slowly but steadily building up a nest egg of his own, safely in the bank where Clem couldn’t get to it. “But yeah, it feels like ages since I last saw you.”

Rafe gestured at the sign over the bar on the corner. “Are you in a rush right now?” 

Justin barely hesitated before shaking his head. 

Rafe clapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon, I’ll buy you a drink.” He paused, as if struck by a sudden thought. “Are you old enough to drink?” 

“I’m old enough to work in the mines,” Justin said dryly. 

“Good point,” Rafe said as they went through the swinging door and quickly settled themselves at the bar. He squinted at Justin in the dim light. “Anyway, you sure as hell look old enough, with that scruff on your chin.” He shook his head fondly. “I remember when you barely came up to my knees and look at you now. Not used to having to tilt my head back to look up at you!”

The bartender cleared his throat. “What’ll it be?” Without asking Justin his preference, Rafe ordered a beer and a shot of bourbon for each of them.

Since he’d started in the mines, Justin had gotten used to the occasional beer after work together with his fellow workers. Initially reluctant to drink, thanks to Clem’s example, Justin had learned to appreciate beer – and its soothing effect at the end of a long day – as long as it was in moderation. As he had many times before, he told himself fiercely that he would never be like Clem. So when their drinks arrived, Justin lifted his beer in salute and took a deep swallow.

“Cheers,” Rafe said, picking up the shot glass.

Justin eyed the small glass of liquor suspiciously. “What’s this?”

“ _This_ is the good stuff,” Rafe said. “Bourbon. Don’t sip it, swallow it all at once. Like this.” 

Justin followed his example; he felt the burn on the way down and then the spreading warmth in his chest. He smiled in agreement. “You’re right.”

“I usually am, remember?” Rafe said with another grin.

Justin took another sip of beer. “How’s the gang doing?”

“Everyone’s fine,” Rafe said absently, as he motioned to the bartender for another round. “Lance isn’t with us any more – no, he’s not dead, just left town. He got married last month – baby’s due in another couple weeks, I think – and he's working in his old man’s shop.” Rafe idly rotated his empty shot glass on the surface of the polished wooden bar. “We brought in a couple of new kids, not sure yet how they’re gonna work out. One seems to have problems obeying orders, the other faints at the sight of the blood.”

Justin shared Rafe’s assessment of the new recruits. “Sounds like trouble.”

“Nah, Jack had a little talk with the first one, and suddenly his attitude improved. As for the other, well, maybe he’ll get used to it after a while.”

“How’s Lucy?” Justin asked casually, though he could feel the heat rise in his face as he said her name. He blamed the alcohol he’d consumed. 

“She’s fine,” Rafe said with a large smile, as if he knew exactly what Justin was feeling. “She sends you her regards.”

“She does?” Justin said in surprise.

“Standing orders. She’s always asking if I’ve seen you around and said to be sure to tell you she sends her best.” 

Justin felt himself blush even more. “Thanks.” 

Rafe grinned. “You know, with the interest Lucy shows in you, sometimes I wonder if I’ve got something to worry about…” he said, then immediately held up his hand. “Just teasing you, kid. But you do have good taste.”

Lucy had been in Rafe’s orbit for as long as Justin could remember. “How long have you two been together?” he asked.

“Six years,” Rafe said, his voice warm with memory. “It was back in the early days, when the Rads weren’t much more than me and Jack, and we hadn’t yet started making a name for ourselves.” He picked up his beer glass and emptied it. “And look at how far we’ve come now.” He cocked his chin at Justin. “Not that you would know, as it’s been ages since you’re been around the warehouse. Almost like you’re not really part of the gang anymore.”

“Rafe, I--” 

Rafe waved his words away. “Seriously, kid, you gotta do you, what’s best for you and your family.” Rafe sighed. “I never had the discipline for holding down a real job, or maybe I just saw what it did to my old man and grandad, how it made them old before their time. And they still never had enough money even after working themselves near to death. I vowed to myself that I would never go through that, that I would find a better – and easier – way.” He was silent for a moment. “Sure enough, I’ve hit the jackpot. Just got to hold off the other gangs, keep them from horning in on my share.”

“How’s that going?” Justin thought back to the various rumbles he’d participated in over the years. It had been an ongoing struggle to maintain their standing in the gangland pecking order; Rafe constantly had to watch his back, lest another gang – or even an individual – got too ambitious.

“Things might be heating up a bit soon,” Rafe acknowledged.

“What’s changed?” Justin asked immediately.

Rafe smiled. “You were always the bright one, weren’t you?” He shrugged. “Not much has changed except…well, the Greens, after turning a blind eye toward our activities for years, are now demanding a cut of their own.”

“They weren’t taking anything before?”

“A bigger cut,” Rafe clarified. “A much bigger one than they’ve taken until now. Jack thinks they’re purposely spurring the gangs into open warfare to keep us from uniting against them.”

“You’re not seriously thinking of going up against the Greens, are you?” Justin asked incredulously. “The militia is way better armed than all the gangs put together!”

“No, no,” Rafe said quickly, though he avoided Justin’s gaze as he said it. “It would take a God-damn fool to think he could fight the militia and win.” In a transparent attempt to change the subject, he said, “Hey, you want another drink?”

Mindful of the consequences, Justin declined. “No, thanks, I’ve reached my limit.” 

There was a lull in the conversation. Around them was the buzz of the other customers, talking, laughing, or playing darts.

Justin took a deep breath. “You know, Rafe, I don’t think I’ve ever told you how grateful I am to you for everything you’ve done for me.”

Rafe immediately protested. “I haven’t done anything--” 

“Yes, you have,” Justin interrupted. “You gave me a sense of belonging, a place to go when things at home got too bad…I just want to say thank you.” He paused. “I always wondered what caused you to take me in, a scrawny little kid without much going for him.” 

Rafe looked at him for a long moment. “There was something about you,” he said quietly, all traces of joking absent. “I don’t know how to describe it, a spark, your eagerness to always do more, to try and fit in.” He grinned, and the sober mood passed. “Whatever it was, it made it hard to tell you to just get lost!”

Justin refused to let the moment go. “I mean it, Rafe. There were times when I don’t know how I would’ve made it through without you.”

Rafe squeezed his shoulder. “You would’ve managed somehow, kid. You’re a survivor.”


	7. Chapter 7

Justin burst into the warehouse, still reeling from the news he’d just heard on the street. “What happened?”

One of the newer gang members, whose name Justin couldn't recall at the moment, raised his head from the subdued group of teens sitting silently. A few others leaned against the far wall, engaged in a quiet conversation, or paced around the room nervously. Some of them looked shocked, others angry. “It was an ambush.” 

Justin regarded him for a moment in disbelief. “What do you mean? What kind of ambush?”

“It was _supposed_ to be peace talks between the Rads and some other gangs – including the Trons,” said the boy. He ran a nervous hand through his bristly red hair, and Justin suddenly remembered his name. _Rusty_. “But it turned out to be just an excuse to get them to show up. Rafe and Jack were hit. Rafe died instantly, Jack’s in the hospital.” 

Justin closed his eyes momentarily as his worst fears were confirmed.

Kory abruptly stopped his pacing. “The weapons were provided by the Greens,” he said, his expression hardening as he mentioned the militia. “It was a deliberate attempt to take down our guys.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” demanded Abner from where he stood near the window. “Where’s your proof?”

“Where else would the Trons have gotten such firepower from? I ain’t never seen them with anything near like that. And who called for the damn talks in the first place? The Greens!” Kory spat angrily. “Ain’t no way Rafe would have been stupid enough to get within shooting range otherwise.”

“Only the two of them were there?” Justin asked, trying to make sense of it all. “And then the Trons opened fire?”

“Just leaders and their seconds, those were the rules. But right after they got started, at least six more of the Trons came in, and they were followed by about as many Raptors and Targs.” 

Justin raised his head sharply at the mention of the latter two gangs, whose turf was further east. “How do you know, if you weren’t there?”

Kory looked sheepish. “Jack told us to follow but stay back, just in case there was some funny business going on. _He_ never trusted the Greens to begin with. He warned Rafe it was probably a trap, but Rafe said it was worth the risk.” He took a deep breath. “And now he’s dead.”

An overwhelming sense of loss swept through Justin. He leaned against the wall, trying to tamp down on his feelings and hold it together.

He looked around the room once more, this time registering who was present. In his mind’s eye, he saw it as it had been in the past, with Lance cracking jokes, and Jack snapping back angrily as some of the remarks got under his skin, and Rafe lounging on the couch, holding a beer, with Lucy next to him, rubbing his shoulders and smiling. 

“Lucy,” he said out loud. “Does she know? Did anyone tell her about Rafe?”

His only answer was a blank look from the others. 

He rushed out of the warehouse, intent on only one thing: finding Lucy and making sure she was all right.

Lucy lived in a middle class neighborhood, roughly an hour’s walk from the warehouse. Justin remembered when she and Rafe first moved in, how Rafe had said it was a real step up for both of them. The apartment building was nice; there was no graffiti in the lobby or smell of urine in the stairwell. Lucy lived on the fourth floor. Justin took the stairs two at a time.

He took a deep breath before pressing the buzzer. He wasn’t sure it worked and had lifted his fist to knock, when suddenly the door opened. Lucy stood there, her eyes red-rimmed. She took one look at him and threw herself in his arms.

“Oh, Justin,” she cried. “The police were just here and they said—He’s gone, he’s gone. Rafe is dead.”

His own heart was breaking as he felt her shuddering sobs against him. “I know, Lucy, I know,” he said, holding her and stroking her hair. “I came as soon as I heard.”

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said at last, lifting her tear-stained face from his shoulder. She took a deep breath and stepped back, seeming reluctant to let go of him. “We shouldn’t be standing out in the hallway like this.”

He went inside with her, and despite the circumstances, he couldn’t help glancing around. Brightly colored curtains at the window, and the flowery patterned fabric on the couch, gave it a homey look. He sat down next to Lucy and took her hand.

“I really loved Rafe, and now he’s gone,” she said, her voice trembling, and looked up to meet Justin’s eyes, as if seeking something in his expression. “You understand, because I know you loved him too.” Her shoulders heaved with a fresh set of sobs. “What am I going to do without him?” 

“I’m here for you, Lucy,” Justin said, pulling her close once more. “I’ll help you get through this. You’re not alone.”

Lucy pressed against him. The feel of her breasts against his chest was an unfamiliar sensation but not at all unpleasant, taking him back to an earlier time, to his farewell with Ms. Parker. The memory faded, pushed aside by the present, and the woman he held in his arms.

Their eyes met, and then their lips. At 15, Justin had had fleeting experience with girls, kissing and fondling, but it was nothing compared to this. Lucy responded eagerly, and he forced her mouth open with his tongue, driven by a hunger he’d never felt before. The scent of her was intoxicating. He moved his lips down the side of her neck, to the opening of her dress. She bared her breasts to him, and he took her nipple in his mouth. He was very hard; she fumbled at his belt and he pushed her skirt up, his hand going between her legs and exploring. 

She leaned back against the couch pillows, gazing at him expectantly, before reaching down and grasping his penis, guiding him inside her. He felt the wrongness at being with her like this, but at the same time it felt so right and he was too excited to stop. She writhed against him desperately, as they both sought release. As she came, he heard her cry out Rafe’s name. 

***  
Justin couldn’t stop thinking about Lucy and what had happened between them. Unfortunately, his scheduled work shifts meant it would be another two weeks until he would be able to see her again.

He spent the intervening time – when not on shift - trying to come up with a plan for the future. Fueled by the passion of the night they’d spent together, he realized his youthful crush had developed into something much stronger. He loved Lucy, wanted to be with her, maybe even marry her. He had no doubt she felt the same way about him. When he turned 16 in just another few months, he would be an adult according to law. 

Reality reared its head, however, as he considered the idea. Even as a legal adult, he would still be pretty young to be saddled with the responsibility of a wife – especially as he still had his mother and sister to provide for. That burden rested squarely on his shoulders, as it had been a long time since Clem had contributed anything to the support of the household. 

One thing Justin knew for sure – he needed to see Lucy again as soon as possible, and he was frustrated at having to wait. 

With a spring in his step, adrenaline coursing through him at the prospect of finally reuniting with her, Justin bounded up the steps to Lucy’s apartment and signaled for entry. There was no response. Justin tried again, and frowned. In the past two weeks he’d tried calling her apartment a few times, post-shift, but hadn’t succeeded in connecting with her when she was at home. He hadn’t wanted to try late at night for fear of disturbing her. Personal comm devices were a rarity on Klatus Prime; Justin didn’t even know anyone who owned one.

His worries for Lucy, how she was managing, prompted him to signal a third time, followed by some vigorous knocking. Still no response. Finally, he gave up and headed downstairs and out onto the street.

He had just decided to head for home when he caught sight of her across the street. Heedless of traffic, he strode rapidly, almost running, to her.

“Lucy!” Justin exclaimed. “How are you? I’ve been so--”

“She’s doing just fine, as you can see,” Jack interrupted. Justin hadn’t even noticed him standing there.

“Jack,” Justin said flatly, not bothering to hide his displeasure. “What are you doing here?”

“Out for a little stroll, down to the corner store to pick up a few things for dinner,” Jack said smugly, lifting the bag in his right hand. “Lucy had a hankering to cook this evening.”

Justin looked from Jack to Lucy, who hadn’t said a word. “Lucy, what’s going on? Why is Jack--” he broke off as Jack slipped his free arm around Lucy’s waist. 

“Hello, Justin,” Lucy said quietly.

“Lucy, I don’t understand,” Justin said, stunned.

“There’ve been some changes, kid,” Jack drawled, clearly enjoying Justin’s reaction. “I’ve taken over management of the gang now. We’re going to get the bastards who killed Rafe, and take our fair share of the profits--”

Justin tuned out the rest of his words, his attention riveted on Lucy. “I don’t understand,” he repeated.

“Always were kinda slow on the uptake, weren’t you?” Jack sneered. 

“I wasn’t speaking to you!” Justin burst out, his hands clenching into fists. “Lucy, I need to talk to you. Alone.”

Jack stepped forward, clearly spoiling for a fight. “Let’s get one thing straight--”

“Jack,” Lucy said sharply, and then her voice softened. “Give us a minute. Please?”

Jack backed away but still hovered, making his proprietary interest in Lucy very clear. 

Justin turned to Lucy. “You’re not his property,” he said tersely.

Lucy smiled sadly. “Yes, I am.” 

“You don’t have to be,” Justin said desperately. “I can take care of you--” 

“No,” she said. “You can’t. You’re already carrying enough responsibility for your mama and little sister.” She laid her fingers on his lips, stilling his words. “You can’t save me, Justin, so don’t even try.” 

Justin watched in disbelief as she walked over and joined Jack, who put his arm around her once more. Together, they continued down the street and headed into the apartment building. 

Justin spent the next several hours walking the streets, all thoughts of going home vanished. Lucy’s choosing Jack had hit him hard, but it seemed obvious once he looked at the situation dispassionately. Lucy had never been on her own; there had always been Rafe. Now that he was gone, she had turned first to Justin, and then when he wasn’t available, to Jack, who had been Rafe’s trusted second in command. As much as it hurt, Justin saw now that their night together had meant nothing to her. He had simply been in the right place at the right time, someone conveniently present. All his thoughts of the past two weeks, all his plans, had been rendered meaningless. He had so convinced himself his fantasy was real, that he wasn’t quite sure what to do next.

He was forced to take a long hard look at himself. Approaching adulthood meant he would have to choose – again- between two paths: the mines or the streets. He’d chosen the mines before - the “respectable” way, though it meant back-breaking labor and he would be doomed to stay in poverty for the rest of his life. The streets offered the chance of better money, but the risk was higher: he could up end up dead – like Rafe. 

Justin resolved that he was going to find another way, a better way. He was _not_ going to spend his life grinding away at two-bit jobs, _or_ die on the streets. What that way was, he didn’t know. He just knew that he needed to get away from Klatus Prime, where all he had were constraints. Even as the thought came, though, he knew he could never leave. He was held back by his responsibility to his family. Besides, where would he go anyway?

As if in answer to his question, he suddenly remembered the incident with the `Fleeters back when he was a small child, when he’d tried unsuccessfully to lift the captain’s moneybag. He remembered the way the two men were dressed and looked, and especially the way the transporter beam just swept them away from all this squalor. 

He shrugged, put the memory out of his mind, and began the long walk home.


	8. Chapter 8

That evening, for the first time in weeks, Justin sat at the dinner table with his family. When he’d come in earlier, he’d been surprised to see that Clem was there. Clem had been absent the last couple of times Justin had come home, though what he’d been doing, Justin couldn’t say. From what Justin had seen, Clem's behavior was continuing to deteriorate; he was drunk most of the time, and hadn't worked in months. But here he was, sitting on the battered sofa, a half empty beer bottle in his hand. Justin’s mouth tightened but Clem looked away.

“Justin!” Kallie rushed over and threw her arms around his waist. “You’re home!” He scooped her up to return the hug, but she squirmed to be put down. “Don’t pick me up! I’m not a baby anymore!”

“No, you’re not,” Justin agreed, though in his mind’s eye, he still saw her as a toddler. “You started school last week, right? How is it going?”

“I really like it,” Kallie said, her enthusiasm obvious. “Our teacher is really nice and there’s lots of--”

“Serena, are we going to eat soon?” Clem interrupted.

“Yes, everything’s ready,” Serena said, placing a large casserole dish on the table. She straightened up, pressing her hand to her lower back as if it ached. “Justin, I’m so glad to see you! I thought you were coming home this morning and was wondering if I got the day wrong.”

“Something came up to delay me,” Justin said shortly and then went over and gave his mother a kiss.

Serena smiled at him. “Well, better late than never. Come sit down. Kallie, honey, go wash your hands.” Justin went to wash up as well, careful not to step on Kallie’s cat Fluffy which was twining itself around his ankles. He sat down awkwardly at the table.

After Clem helped himself, Serena placed a portion of _dag amnon_ and potatoes on Justin’s plate and then Kallie’s, serving herself last.

Kallie wrinkled up her nose. “I don’t like _dag amnon_ ,” she declared. “Can’t we have something else?”

Privately, Justin agreed with her. He would have preferred something other than the bony fish which, even when pickled in the traditional manner, still retained the flavor of the mud flats in which it had been caught. Even so, he knew it was more expensive than the family’s usual fare. “What’s the occasion?” he asked, picking up his fork and beginning to eat.

“Celebrating my new job,” Clem said as he rapidly shoveled the food into his mouth, clearly enjoying the meal.

“You have a new job?” Justin said incredulously, wondering what the old drunk was qualified for and who would hire him. “Doing what?”

“Working in one of the pubs,” Serena said, a note of forced gaiety in her voice. “He’s managing the stock and inventory. Isn’t that great?”

Justin’s lip curled, and he couldn’t refrain from saying disdainfully, “Better make sure you don’t drink up all the profits.”

Clem stiffened and his hands tightened on his cutlery, but he didn’t say anything.

“Come on, Kallie, just try a bite of the fish,” Serena coaxed. “You can’t just eat the potatoes.”

“But I don’t like it! It tastes yucky!” Kallie exclaimed, pushing her plate aside to emphasize her words. Unfortunately, she shoved a little too hard; the plate skittered off the edge of the table and crashed to the floor. 

Immediately, Fluffy seized the opportunity and leaped onto the spilled food. 

Clem’s face turned purple. “You stupid girl!” he bellowed. “Do you know how much that cost?” He shoved back his chair and stood up, his sharp dinner knife still clutched in his right hand.

In a flash, Justin was on his feet. He grabbed Clem roughly by the shoulder and spun him around, knocking the knife out of his hand. “Don’t you touch her!”

“Get your hands off me! Who the hell do you think you are?” Clem said furiously as he took a swing at Justin.

Justin easily deflected the blow and delivered one himself to Clem’s jaw that caused the older man to double over in pain. He was much taller than Clem now, and he could see the fear in Clem’s eyes. 

“Don’t you ever try to—you will _not_ lay a single finger on her, you hear me?” Justin yelled. Rage boiled up inside him as he hit Clem again and again, meting out punishment for the attempted harm to Kallie, for all the times he himself had been Clem’s helpless victim. Hearing the sound of Kallie’s crying in the background just hardened his resolve. 

“Justin, stop!” Serena begged. “Stop hitting him! Please, just stop, there’s no harm done.”

“No harm?” Justin said in disbelief, as he knocked Clem to the floor with another hard right to his jaw. Clem tried to rise but failed, his hands clutching the lower half of his face.

Almost spitting in his fury, Justin said, “If you ever lay a hand on Mama or Kallie again, I’ll make you regret it!” 

Clem coughed and spat out a tooth. His nose was streaming blood, and large purple bruises were already forming on his face. “Get the hell out of here,” he said weakly, and then repeated it more strongly. “Get the hell out!” Raising his voice to be heard above Serena’s protests and Kallie’s tearful pleading, he added, “You’re not welcome under my roof.” 

“Just who do you think has been paying for that roof?” Justin said scornfully. “You haven’t done a damn thing for this family in years.”

“How would you know?” Clem shot back. “You don’t know a God damn thing about how much I do! It’s not like _you_ ever contributed anything.” 

With a start, Justin remembered how he’d asked Serena not to let Clem know about his work in the mines. Clearly, she had also never told Clem that Justin had been giving her money to cover the household bills. But Clem wasn’t finished. “You think what your mother makes is enough to cover food and rent? ‘Cleaning houses’,” Clem mocked. “Yeah, she really cleans up, on her back for those men!”

Justin’s blood ran cold at Clem’s vicious words. “What did you say?”

“Your mother is a whore,” Clem said contemptuously. “She might say she’s doing it for the good of her family, but the truth is she enjoys it. Fucking all the rich business men…the money is just a bonus. Go ahead,” he said bitingly, as Justin clenched his fists in rage. “Hit me again. It won’t change a thing. She’ll always be a whore, and you’ll always be a bastard, just like whatever lowlife fathered you! One of her customers, I’m sure she never even knew his name!” 

Justin was momentarily stunned, but in a detached corner of his mind, realized that unlike the rest of Clem’s cruel barbs, this one was true. _Clem wasn’t his father_. Justin didn’t remember a time when Clem wasn't around so he’d had no suspicions until now, though he always knew his own dark coloring was strikingly different from Clem and Serena’s fair hair and light eyes. 

He turned to his mother and saw the confirmation in her eyes. “It wasn’t like that, I swear,” she whispered. She bowed her head as if ashamed to meet his gaze, perhaps fearing his reaction.

Justin was filled with a vast sense of relief, liberating and almost overpowering in its intensity-- and a cold, all-encompassing hatred. He turned toward Clem, his hands knotting into fists in anticipation. “You lying son of a bitch--” He broke off at the sight of Kallie cringing in fear. But she wasn’t looking at Clem. 

Justin took a deep breath, aware of what he had been about to do, and forcing himself back from the brink. “Mama, I--”

Serena looked up from where she sat huddled on the floor, trying to comfort Kallie. “Just go, Justin. Please.”

“But--”

“We’ll be all right,” she insisted. “Really. Please, just go.”

Justin hesitated for a long moment. “All right, I’m going,” he said though he wasn’t at all sure he was doing the right thing. He started toward the door, then turned around gave Clem one last look. “You better watch your step,” he said, his voice low and menacing, “or I swear, the next time I see you, I’ll kill you. Count on it.”

***  
Justin spent the night on the streets. There had been a time he’d have gone to the Rads’ warehouse after a confrontation like this, but that refuge was closed to him now. Perhaps he looked as dangerous as he felt, because no one gave him any trouble; people took one look at him and immediately crossed to the other side of the street. Later he would have no recollection of where he had been, the neighborhoods he traversed. He was only conscious of walking, his thoughts circling around and around the same well-worn paths.

In the late morning, he headed toward home. After making two quick stops, he waited in the shadows in the alley until he saw Clem leave, doubtless on his way to the pub. Slowly, Justin ascended the stairs to the apartment. He paused before unlocking the door and going inside.

Serena sat in the rocker, twisting her hands together. She looked as though she’d been crying for hours, her eyes red and her face puffy. At the sound of his footsteps, a wave of relief washed over her face. “Justin, about last night--”

“Don’t worry, I’m not staying,” he said curtly. “I’ve just come to get my things.”

Serena sighed and bit her lip. Wearily, she got up and came over to him, laid her hand gently on his arm. “When Clem told you to leave…I’m so sorry…maybe in a couple of weeks he’ll calm down, come around…maybe you could stay on-site at the mines in the meantime.”

Justin shook his head. “No.” He took a deep breath. “I gave notice at the mine office. I’m going away, Mama, there’s nothing for me here on Klatus, not anymore.” He considered the events of the last 24 hours. “Maybe there never was.”

Tears rolled down her face, but when Serena spoke, her voice was calm. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Come with me,” Justin said suddenly. “Leave Clem. You and Kallie shouldn’t have to constantly live in fear, worried every moment that something will set him off. You deserve better than that.” 

“No, I don’t,” Serena said. 

“ _No one_ deserves to be beaten like what Clem did to you – or me,” Justin said passionately, remembering the bruises that had appeared periodically on her face and arms through the years. He knew there were probably a lot more that weren’t visible, emotional scars that Clem had inflicted over time. _Nothing_ she had done, even if Clem’s ugly slurs _were_ true, would mean she deserved that.

Serena’s expression changed as if she’d heard the words he hadn’t said out loud. “I can’t leave him, Justin.”

“Why not?” he demanded. “What could possibly be holding you back?”

“I’m pregnant,” she said softly.

“Oh God,” Justin said, sitting down heavily on the sofa. “Oh, Mama. Does Clem know?” 

“I haven’t told him yet, but it will become obvious pretty soon.”

“So you could still--” 

“No,” she said firmly. “I can’t.”

His heart clenched within him as he realized she was trapped. “Was this what happened when you were pregnant with me?”

Serena sat down next to him. She was silent for a long moment, and then she began to speak, slowly at first and then the words started tumbling out faster and faster. “I was alone, pregnant, with no one to turn to since my parents died. And Clem was there.” She paused, as if expecting him to say something but he just nodded for her to go on. “He was sweet at first, considerate. He swore he didn’t mind about the baby, promised he’d take care of both of us.”

“So you married him.”

“I did. And in the early years, he kept his promise. He had steady work in the mines, and life wasn’t so bad. He spoke often about having more children – one of his own.” She looked up, her eyes haunted. “But then things changed. They reduced his shifts as younger, stronger workers were hired, and he began to drink.”

Justin nodded curtly. “I remember. That’s when he started treating me as a punching bag.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Serena said. “But you looked so much like your father…”

“And it reinforced I wasn’t his, so he resented me,” Justin finished. “Who was or is my father? What happened to him?”

“It wasn’t like what Clem said,” she said, obviously referring to the accusation Clem had hurled at her the night before. “I loved your father very much. We were together for a few months, and it was one of the happiest times of my life. But he…he couldn’t stay. He left, before I even knew I was pregnant.” 

“Did you try to get in touch with him, tell him you were expecting his child?”

Serena shook her head. “It’s complicated. He went off-world; he wasn’t from Klatus originally, and he never had any intentions of staying.” 

Justin couldn’t help wondering, if she’d loved his father so much, why she couldn’t protect his son. Out loud, he said, “It doesn’t matter.” He cleared his throat and met her eyes unwaveringly. “But here’s something that _is_ important. Right now, _you need to protect Kallie_. Don’t _ever_ let him hurt her – or the new baby. Promise me you’ll do everything you can to keep them safe.” 

“I promise,” Serena said.

He quickly gathered together a few items of clothing, then knelt down beside his old worn pallet and pulled out his box of keepsakes from his childhood. By most standards, it was a pitiful collection of treasures – a few colored rocks, a coil of string, a worn switchblade that Rafe had once given him, and a few folded pieces of paper that were revealed to be old math exercises. He let the box drop to the floor. There was nothing here worth taking.

Serena had watched in silence and when he finished, she held out her arms. He embraced her and then let go. 

“Even though I’m leaving,” he said, fishing in his pocket and pulling out a wad of credits, “I still plan on helping out. Take this now, and I’ll send you some more when I can.”

“Justin, I don’t need--”

“Yes, you do,” he insisted, and placed the credits in her hand, folding her fingers over them. “Use it to take care of Kallie – and yourself.”

“But where will you go? What will you do?” she asked plaintively.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “All I know is I’m going to take the first off-world transport that I can. I’ll make a better life for myself. But I promise I’ll come back for you, one day.” 

Serena kissed him goodbye, then reached up and smoothed his hair out of his eyes. Her expression showed she understood. “Good luck.” 

At that moment, Kallie came home from school. She took one look and raced over to her brother, threw her arms around his waist. “Justin! I knew you’d come back!” 

“Yes, I did,” he said, dreading what he was about to tell her, “but I’m going away again. And this time it’s for good.”

Tears started in her eyes. “But _why_ do you have to go, Justin? Please stay. We _need_ you, Mama and me. Please don’t go.” 

He picked her up and held her close for a moment, then leaned back slightly and looked at her intently. “I wish I could stay with you, Kallie,” he said softly. “But I can’t.”

“Don’t you love me anymore?” she asked, and the words cut him to the quick.

“I will always love you,” he assured her as he set her back on her feet. “That will never change, no matter how far apart we are. But it’s time for me to make my own life.”

She slowly nodded in resignation. “Will you ever come back?”

“I will,” he promised. “We’ll see each other again one day.”

He took one last look at his mother and sister, then picked up his bag and headed out.


	9. Chapter 9

_Two weeks later_

The Starfleet Entrance Processing Station on Cassius III wasn't large enough to warrant more than one officer on duty at a time --whose shifts weren't that busy regardless. Despite the large holographic sign on the window, walk-in traffic was light. Lieutenant Egon Brenner considered himself fortunate if he processed more than three new recruits per week. Not that he had specific quotas to meet; "the best and the brightest" couldn't be measured in terms of quantity, only quality. 

Most of the people Brenner saw pass through his door were earnest young men and women inquiring how they could take the entrance exams for the Academy. It was the work of a minute to hand them the application forms and instruct them to have them signed by a minimum of three teachers or administrators at their school, and where to transmit the accompanying transcripts and references. 

Less common were the 'grunts', as Brenner called them, who filled out the enlisted ranks. The ones who didn't have the education, or the ability, to aspire to the officer corps but were driven by idealism--or the chance to escape a miserable existence on a Podunk planet--to be a part of Starfleet in any way they could.

The young man standing on the other side of the desk shifted his feet restlessly. "Excuse me?" he said hesitantly.

Brenner studied him carefully, the shabby and faded tunic and trousers, the powerfully-built shoulders, the callused hands that pushed ineffectively at the cowlick of black hair that fell into surprisingly alert and intelligent green eyes. "What can I do for you, son?"

"I'd like to join Starfleet."

"You looking to go to the Academy?" Brenner asked.

He shook his head. "Enlisted."

Brenner nodded; this one had 'grunt' written all over him. "Place of birth?"

"Klatus Prime."

Brenner masked his surprise. Despite the harsh economic conditions on that world, they normally didn’t get many recruits from Klatus. He looked at the boy’s hands again. Most likely came from the mines, and had decided he could do better elsewhere. Brenner almost felt sorry for him--the kid had no idea what he was getting himself into, provided he even made it through the rigorous basic training program. Still, those muscles meant he was used to hard work, which meant he might even make it through the rigors of Starfleet training. The other aspects, however--he was about to say as much, but found himself looking into those green eyes. There was defiance there, as if he knew exactly what Brenner was thinking, defiance and something more. Raw hunger.

Despite himself, Brenner said, "You're in luck, son. There's a transport leaving this evening for the training center on Robius. New intake begins every six weeks, so you'll be doing pushups and laps on the quad before you know it. If you're sure this is what you want."

"I'm sure."

Brenner nodded again. He called up the appropriate form on his computer, transferred it to a PADD and handed it to the new recruit. "Fill this out."

Within a few moments, Brenner read over the completed form. "Age: Seventeen. Parents: father deceased, mother’s contact information, education... All seems to be in order." He added the official seal with a flourish. "Welcome to Starfleet," he glanced at the name once more, "Mister Justin Tighe."

The End


End file.
